TAFT Announces Final Curtain Call for Tropfest NZ

TAFT
announced this morning that it would not be presenting a
sixth Tropfest New Zealand festival in 2018.

TAFT CEO
Suzanne Porter said in lieu of securing a major sponsor, the
charitable trust’s Board of Trustees had made the decision
not to continue to present the festival.

“To date TAFT
has invested a significant amount in Tropfest NZ and after a
strategic review the decision has been made to focus our
efforts on TAFT’s own festivals (the Taranaki Arts
Festival and Powerco Taranaki Garden Spectacular),” Porter
said.

“It has been a great honour to support and
showcase the work of New Zealand filmmakers. We have
enjoyed working with the film industry and have been humbled
by the support Tropfest NZ has received over the past five
years.

“We would like to thank our ambassadors,
sponsors, festival attendees and all entrants who have made
the last five presentations of Tropfest NZ
possible.”

Tropfest Founder and Director John Polson
said he hoped NZ filmmakers would not be deterred by the
news.

“I’d like to thank the TAFT team for all of
their hard work over the past five years. The concentration
of talent we’ve seen come out of New Zealand has been
beyond impressive and I urge all filmmakers to continue
making films and sharing them wherever possible.” Polson
said he remained optimistic about the New Zealand festival.
“I have great faith that we will be back in New Zealand in
the future,” he said.

Tropfest Australia will be open to
international entries, so New Zealand filmmakers planning on
submitting a film to Tropfest NZ can submit their entries to
Tropfest Australia. For more information on Tropfest
Australia please see their website: www.tropfest.org.au

About
Tropfest

Tropfest began in Sydney 25 years ago when
director John Polson showed a six-minute film he made for
under $100 at his local café (‘The Tropicana’) in
Sydney for 200 friends and family.

Today the free
Australian event is attended annually by a live audience of
over 100,000 filmlovers and hundreds of thousands more
watching via its live national TV broadcast and other
platforms.

In the past two decades, Tropfest has become
recognised as one of the world's most exciting launch pads
for emerging filmmakers. Tropfest is also known for securing
the support of some of the biggest names in the
international film community including Hugh Jackman, Nicole
Kidman, Russell Crowe, Geoffrey Rush, Liev Schreiber and
Tobey Maguire.

Tropfest NZ was held for the first time in
2013, with the annual New Zealand short film competition
open to any NZ residents or citizens – regardless of their
background or experience.

Sixteen finalist films are
selected from an entry pool of more than 100 annual entries
to make up the main screening event and go on to compete for
more than $20,000 in prizes. Tropfest films are unique in
that they have all been made specifically for Tropfest,
premiere at Tropfest and include the Tropfest Signature Item
(or TSI), which changes each year. The TSI for Tropfest NZ
2017 was “FLAME”.

Tropfest NZ has been held annually
in New Plymouth at the TSB Bowl of Brooklands for the past
five years. Ambassadors include Taika Waititi, Sam Neill,
Robyn Wadeson, Martin Henderson, Sara Wiseman, John Barnett
and Vincent Ward. The festival is unique in that the films
are judged live on the night by an industry panel of judges.
Tropfest NZ judges have included industry heavyweights John
Barnett, Katie Wolfe, Jennifer Ward Lealand, Michael Hurst,
Stephen Hunter, Oscar Kightley, James Napier Robertson,
Robert Sarkies, James Griffin, Geraldine Brophy, Angela
Littlejohn and Gaylene Preston. The 2017 event was won by
directors Mary Rinaldi and Sasha Nixon, for their film
‘The Anniversary’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4AvEFY2kcg

Past
Finalist films can be viewed at Tropfest’s YouTube
channel: http://www.youtube.com/tropfest . The
channel has 83,767 subscribers and over 43 million views.
ENDS

ALSO:

"Unfortunately we are in crisis and this friendly dinosaur faces extinction… Our only hope is to try and raise funds to buy the building and restore it to its glory, either fully funded or with a viable deposit." More>>

Previously undiscovered letters and a story written by a young Katherine Mansfield were recently unearthed in Wellington City Library’s archives by a local author researching a book about the famous writer. More>>